In recent years, there have been significant advancements in technology relating to signature inserter apparatus. It will be appreciated in this connection that a signature inserter apparatus comprises a device of the type which is utilized to deliver signatures from a signature supply station to a gathering chain or the like on a binding line. Oftentimes, the signature inserter apparatus will employ multiple vacuum suckers for repeatedly drawing signatures to griping fingers.
Generally speaking, a signature supply station will be provided with signatures that are generally vertically positioned. Specifically, the signatures will typically rest on their backbones on an indexing conveyor or the like wherein the lead one of the signatures at any point in time will have its backbone resting against a pair of impaling pins When a reciprocating vacuum sucker arm contacts the lead signature, it pulls it over the impaling pins to the gripping fingers.
When this occurs, the impaling pins then restrain the next one of the signatures. It is held in position, i.e., it then becomes the next lead signature, until the reciprocating vacuum sucker arm returns. At that point, the process is repeated, and this continues to occur in cyclical fashion.
In other words, the reciprocating vacuum sucker arm delivers the signatures from the signature supply station one at a time by pulling the signatures over the impaling pins, and the impaling pins then restrain the signatures at the signature supply station until the reciprocating vacuum sucker arm returns in its next cycle of operation.
While all of this is known in the art, it is also known that the impaling pins periodically require an adjustment for efficient operation. More to the point, a variety of factors may dictate the desirability and/or necessity of adjusting the impaling pins generally vertically upward or downward depending upon the type and nature of signatures being handled and other parameters associated with the operation of the signature inserter apparatus. In the past, this has been a laborious and time consuming project inasmuch as the impaling pins were raised and lowered in a difficult, manual fashion.
Specifically, the impaling pins have typically been raised and lowered by hand. This occurs only after a set screw is loosened, following which the set screw must again be tightened in order to lock the impaling pins in their new position of adjustment. As will be appreciated, this has proven to be unsatisfactory for a variety of reasons.
Most obviously, the adjustment of the impaling pins has required the signature inserter to be disabled This, of course, requires not only disablement of a particular signature inserter but, usually, disablement of the entire binding line which is most costly in terms of the operating efficiency of a bindery facility Still additionally, the manual adjustment typically comprises a trial and error procedure.
In this connection, the impaling pins are typically adjusted in an independent fashion. There is thus always at least a reasonable possibility that, not only will the selected degree of adjustment be improper, but one impaling pin may be adjusted to a different degree in relation to the other impaling pin. As a result, it has remained to provide a means of improving upon this cumbersome procedure.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the foregoing problems and achieving one or more of the resulting objects.